Making money online Is it really possible to make money on the internet? Many have tried and many have failed. But does that mean you need to be some kind of whizz kid to succeed? Is it just too hard or too time consuming for the average person to make a regular income online? Well it’s true to some extent that it’s not plain sailing. There is no easy, instant method of making a fortune overnight simply by placing an ad on the web or building a popular website. At least not without careful planning, research and some basic marketing knowledge to help you have a fighting chance. The ones who do achieve considerable success have done so through sheer hard work, by learning the skills and the methods that work successfully and applying what they learn to reach their goals. Perhaps there are a lucky few who made it to the top faster than the rest without too much effort. But that’s only likely to happen with a brilliant idea that is totally new, innovative and grabs the attention of tens of millions of people. And even then you’re probably going to need help from the marketing experts to help you turn your ideas into a huge financial success. So for now, let’s stop dreaming of getting rich quick and consider the alternatives of how to make money online slowly but surely. The three methods I personally use regularly, with moderate success are Affiliate marketing, Product development and Adsense. So these are the ones I’m going to recommend first. If you’re already familiar with these areas of internet marketing then I’ll spare you the nitty gritty details and simply outline what is involved, and if you want to learn more about these tried and tested techniques then simply click on the links highlighted below. Let’s start with.... Adsense. The ads that are an intergral part of the way AdSense works are known as PPC (pay per click) advertisements, the ones you see on the right side of the page when you put a search into Google. They are also known as ‘sponsored ads’ So how can the AdSense program make you money? Well basically it works like this... The advertiser pays Google each time their ad gets clicked. Not everytime it gets displayed, only when it gets clicked on. This is a good thing for the advertiser because they only have to pay for leads that bring them visitors, and in turn that visitor may take up the advertiser’s offer. So the advertiser gets good quality targeted traffic to their site, Google makes some revenue, and both parties are happy. But it doesn’t end there, because Google allows website owners to put these ads on their website too, using a small snippet of code that they supply. And when someone visits your website and clicks on one of the ads, then Google will share the revenue they receive from the advertiser, and in turn will pass on to you a percentage in commission. What makes this method of making money online so involving is that the ads that display on your website will be mostly related to the content you provide, and statistics show that visitors are much more likely to click on these type of ads than non-related ads. It’s a great way to make an ongoing passive income without too much work on your part, other than creating good content that your visitors will find useful. The difficult part is actually getting enough visitors to your site to start clicking on those ads. So it’s not so straightforward as it seems because you need to learn the techniques that will get you the traffic you need. At least enough traffic to make it worthwhile.But once you’ve succeeded at making one good website that provides a regular income from AdSense, then why not create a second or even a third website or more and repeat the process? For more information about making money online with adsense click here. My second recommended method of making an income from the internet is to promote affiliate products. This is usually referred to as... Affiliate Marketing This involves advertising and promoting a product or service provided by a company, that from now on we’ll refer to as the ‘Merchant’. In other words if, for example, you have a website related to travel, and specifically about a particular destination that you have recently been to on vacation, you might consider promoting the travel companies you used to plan your vacation. This could involve the flights you booked, the hotel reservations you make online, or even the auto rental company you use to hire a car. Any one, or all of these companies may have an affiliate program which pays a commission to affiliates who promote their services that generate a sale. So by incorporating a text link or banner, through a piece of code provided by the merchant’s affiliate program, when a person clicks that link they will be taken to the merchant’s homepage or a specific ‘landing page’ where that person may go on to purchase the merchant’s product or service, which in turn will net you a commission. The amount of commission you can earn will vary depending on the merchant’s payment plan. So you will need to do a little research first and choose the ones that will pay a decent commission. However, the ones that pay out the most are not necessarily the best ones to promote. It also depends on their popularity with the public and how sucessful their ads attract customers. One commission network that provides most of this information to help you decide is Commission Junction. They are an affiliate network that has many of the top performing companies on their list, which is great for affiliates looking for a merchant that will fit in with their website content. You can promote their affiliate links on your website or blog, or even by using PPC advertising provided by third party companies like Google and Yahoo! (If the merchant allows this in their affiliate terms and conditions) For more information about making money online with affiliate marketing click here. My third recommendation as a way to make money online is through.... Product development This basically involves creating any type of product that will appeal to a niche target audience. It can be a digital product that people can purchase and download immediately online, or a tangible product that you can either source from a supplier or manufacture yourself and sell directly from your website, or someone else’s website on a commission basis, or through advertising. (ebay is a good place to start) I personally prefer the first approach. Selling digital products that people can purchase and download online cuts out a lot of the hard work of putting together the orders, packaging them and posting them. (it also saves on costs too!) So apart from the time it takes to develop suitable products, whether it be ebooks, software, video tutorials or whatever, once your product has been created it’s simply a case of marketing and effectively finding ways to get your product sold. And once again that comes down to research, planning and targeting the right market. For more information about making money online with your own product click here. Other ways to make money from the internet Other ways to make money online include the following methods which I have listed below. My list includes links to appropriate articles which will provide you with more information than I can possibly give you here. Google Adwords - Set up an account with Google to start your own PPC ad campaigns. Find a good affiliate product to sell and start promoting it to earn commissions. However, a word of advice! There’s a lot more to this process than just placing ads and expecting the money to start rolling in. It involves careful research and planning, choosing the right product, using the most effective keywords and ad text, a bit of common sense in how to use your funds wisely, and preferably some basic knowledge in building customer mailing lists so that you can pre-sell and upsell related products and services effectively. Suggested reading: Making money with Google AdWords Newsletters - If you can build a large subscriber base, either through PPC advertising linked to an opt-in page, or via a popular subject related website, (it doesn’t have to be a large site as long as it gets enough traffic and interest) you can then send your subscribers a regular newsletter that could generate commissions from product recommendations, or even selling advertising space. Of course you also want to provide plenty of good free valuable information because you don’t want to bombard subscribers with just sales patter. Not unless you want to lose them! Suggested reading: Money from Newsletters Blogs & Forums - Another way to make money from regular visitors is to start a forum or a blog based around a popular subject that also interests you. If you build up a steady stream of traffic by providing original content and comments from people with similar interests, you can then place some ads on your best performing pages that may generate revenue. You can either choose to sell advertising space if your traffic count is high, or use the AdSense ads or affiliate banners as described above to make it financially viable. Suggested reading: How to make money from blogs Make Money with Video - There are websites now that will pay you when you place video clips on their site that attracts visitors who also click on relevant ads placed around them. Flixya is one of these sites and they allow you to keep 100% of all the ad revenue generated by your video content. Flixya pays you through the Google Adsense publisher program. There are no fees to join or upload content, no gimmicks and of course, you don’t need a website. Make Money Writing - You can make money by writing about selected products and services using a free blog - see Bloggerwave. You can also make money by writing for other people’s blogs or newsletters. Some will pay you for good content that improves their readers experience. Check the ProBlogger Job Boards where you can often find blogs that need writers and are willing to pay for their work. Alternatively, you can join a community website like Hubpages who share Google AdSense revenue in a similar way to Flixya described above. Unfortunately, you don’t receive 100% of the ad revenue that your ‘Hub’ pages generate, but it’s a very popular site which attracts thousands of daily visitors. Suggested reading: Get paid to write articles Make Money with your Artwork - If you’re an artist then selling your artwork online is a great way to add to your income. There are various ways you can do this so it depends on what type of art you like to produce and the market you’re aiming at. Artists producing original paintings, or high quality prints for example, would do well to seek out the online galleries that sell art on a commission. If you prefer to deal with the sales directly then ebay is a good place to start selling. Once established, you could set up your own website and a shopping cart (such as Pay Pal provides) and sell directly from your site. For graphic designers and illustrators you might like to consider producing artwork for selling on products such as t-shirts, coffee mugs and mouse pads etc. You can do this through websites such as Zazzle and CafePress.
Suggested reading: Ways to make money selling art Make Money with Your Camera - There are countless ways to make money with a digital camera. Have you considered freelancing? Pet photography? Child and baby photography? Travel photography? Photo journalism? The list could go on and on, but if you’re looking for ways to sell your photos online then the choices are more limited. You can of course promote your photography skills and services via a website, which is the perfect way to display the skills you can offer. But are there ways to sell your photographic work online? Well there are a few options you could start with. First there’s stock photography (see article below) Or you can have your images printed and sold on various products (as described above through Zazzle.com and CafePress.com) Or if you’re very artistic you could sell them as prints via ebay or online photo galleries. See Photoboxgallery and Photo4me If all else fails you could still make some extra money by building your own niche photographic website with photo galleries, tips and Google AdSense or affiliate ads. Suggested reading: How to make money with photography Make Money from Website Design or Coding - If you’re a competent web designer or programmer then you can easily make money by using your skills to produce work for others who are willing to pay you. eLance and Scriptlance are the best places to start. Here you’ll find jobs available for programmers, designers, coders, writers, developers, translators, marketers, researchers and more. Online Surveys - There are a number of paid online survey and market research sites who will pay you to fill out questionaires and give your opinions on selected products and services. It’s unskilled work and relatively simple and straightforward, so it’s ideal for anyone wanting to make some extra money from home using a computer. Be careful though. There are quite a few survey sites that will charge you for their services for introducing you to companies that pay for this type of work. It can save you time seeking them out but with a bit of simple research you can usually find them online. See Internetpaidsurveys.com Suggested reading: How to avoid scam paid survey sites Search results and sponsored ads - Believe it or not there are alternatives to Google’s AdSense program. Take a look at 7Search.com They have a similar type of program which can generate revenue through clicks on sponsored ads and via their search box results. It may be worth your while, particularly if it fits in more with the style of your website. Contextual ads - These are another alternative to AdSense ads. If you display PPC (Pay Per Click) ads on your website or blog using the code provided by Kontera, then certain keywords in your content will display and show up as an advert with double underlined text that is relevant to what the visitor is reading. For genuine clicks made on these ads Kontera will pay you a small amount of commision, which over time will soon add up, depending on how much traffic you generate. Other online resources that may be of help. www.freelancewriting.com - Find freelance writing jobs here www.associatedcontent.com - A website for writers seeking to get their work published www.ifreelance.com - Freelance work website. (Good place for artists, graphic designers, programmers and writers) www.artforums.co.uk - Find ideas and seek advice about producing and selling art www.freelancer.com - Another recruitment site for web designers and programmers www.redbubble.com - Sell images of your artwork, photos, graphic designs and illustrations as framed prints, greeting cards, posters etc. I’m sure there are plenty more places if you search Google that will provide more opportunities to sell your skills. But the websites I have listed are the ones you should seek out first. So these are a few of my recommendations for making money online from home, with your computer and an internet connection.Some of the methods described above require you to have an established website with good quality content. But there are other ways where a website is not essential. Having your own website however will certainly give you an advantage. It does involve a certain amount of planning and setting up, but once you have learnt how it could be your best way forward. To put it simply you need to... a) Have a good idea for a website, register a suitable domain name and develop your website content. This should be in written form such as informative articles or reviews, plus suitable graphics and/or digital photos that will enhance the visitor’s experience. You can then... b) Design a website using software that is freely available online or use a good web design program such as NetObjects Fusion (Your website doesn’t have to be a work of art and NetObjects Fusion is one of the easiest programs to use to achieve good results) Then get your website online by... c) Finding a good web host provider to host your website for a regular affordable monthly or annual sum. Set up the ftp account details using an ftp utility that will be used to upload your web pages. Then find and impliment ways to get visitors to your site. (It also pays to learn a little html along the way) Alternatively, you could set up a blog with Blogger.com or Wordpress and get your content online that way, (and you won’t need to know hardly anything about html) but you may be a little bit more restricted in the type of merchants you can affiliate with. Whichever road you decide to take, a well designed website or blog filled with good content, and preferrably in a niche market with little competition, will give you a better chance of making money online. You’re also going to have better results if you learn a few of the internet marketing techniques that can boost your chances of success. These include developing SEO (search engine optimization) skills, and learning how to do research of suitable and effective keyword/phrases to attract your target audience. Preferably the ones who are actively seeking the products and services your are wanting to promote, and are ready and willing to buy. Get more information about creating a profitable website Click here for more ways to make money online and 500 ways to make extra cash |
